


Putting Out Fire With Gasoline

by eldweebo



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Cooking, Enemies to Friends, Fights, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-19 21:29:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19980799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldweebo/pseuds/eldweebo
Summary: Ben Sisko might say he means well. Gul Dukat said the same thing when this was Terok Nor.Commander Sisko attempts to reconcile his differences with his first officer, but it goes straight off the rails, making the tension between him and Major Kira worse than it was before.





	Putting Out Fire With Gasoline

**Author's Note:**

> I've always felt that we missed some of Kira's development and the development of her relationship with Sisko. She has very good reasons to mistrust him, emissary or not. I wanted to show some of that development, so I wrote 9 pages of yelling/therapy. This takes place early season 1.

“Major.”  
Kira Nerys stopped in her tracks. Ben Sisko had that effect on people. One stern word and you’d wave the white flag. No. Not this time. How many times had Kira been called into the commander’s office over some policy infraction or some perceived slight. She’d lost count after the fifteenth time in the brief month or so that Sisko had been in charge of the station. She wasn’t going to be some docile hara kitten for the Federation, purring when they said purr. She turned to face him.  
“With all due respect, Commander,” she began, pushing a stray red lock behind her ear. “You don’t know what it was like before the Federation so generously decided to lend a hand with the cleanup.”  
“I’ve read the reports, seen the holotapes,” Sisko said. He held up a hand, cutting off Kira’s imminent response. “I know, I know, it’s not the same as being there. You don’t have to tell that to a soldier. But that was then, this is now. We have to move on from that, and with you as Bajoran liaison to this station and, through it, the Federation, that starts with you.”  
“Oh, so I’m supposed to just get over it?” She leaned on the chair facing him. “The audiences at home on Earth and Vulcan don’t like it when they see us crying, when they see us full of anger and grief, so I’ll just smile for the cameras then?”  
“No one is telling you how to feel-”  
“So what are you telling me then?” Kira was quicker that time.  
Sisko took a breath. He had stared down Borg, Cardassians, and, more recently, extradimensional, possibly deific aliens, yet none compared to the fire in the eyes of his executive officer. There was a certain attitude, or lack thereof, really, that all Starfleet officers had, no matter their rank or posting. A certain willingness to get along, to hear you out. This willingness was entirely absent in Kira Nerys. She was hostile. Arrogant. Stubborn. She had opinions about every little thing, every command decision, and she would let you know. There had been more days than Sisko could count when he had come close to demanding her resignation. There had even been a few when he had considered court martialing her.  
“Well?” She demanded.  
She also knew Bajor better than he knew his father’s restaurant. What’s more, she knew the Cardassians, Dukat in particular, and Sisko had a feeling that familiarity would be more than useful in the coming years. She was resourceful, and nearly impossible to back into a corner.  
“You’ve made your point, Major.” He rubbed his temples. “Let’s table this discussion for now. Ah.” She turned to go but he stopped her. “One more thing.”  
“More PR for the Federation?”  
“Not exactly,” he said. “Report to my quarters at 1600 hours tomorrow. Wear something you don’t mind getting dirty in.”  
Kira considered his words, and made no effort to hide the suspicion on her face. “Yes, sir,” she said, without conviction.  
“You’re dismissed.” He waved to the door. Major Kira Nerys nodded and exited his ready room.

~

Kira checked her chronometer. 1548. Well, if the commander wanted her to take time out of her off hours to check in with him, he’d have to be flexible. She rang the bell.  
“Come in, come in,” Sisko shouted. The doors slid open. A wave of heat and the thick scent of spices overwhelmed Kira. She blinked the smoke out of her eyes and crossed the room. Sisko was facing away from her, in front of a long, narrow table covered in pots, pans, gas cookers, grills, cutting boards, knives, and various instruments she couldn’t identify. And that wasn’t even counting the ingredients. Piles of vegetables in red and green, herbs and spices, a number of butchered lifeforms totally alien to her.  
“Um, Commander?” She asked, somewhat perplexed.  
“You’re early, Major,” he said, without turning from his work.  
“Commander Sisko, if there’s some sort of issue with the air filters in here, you could have asked Chief O’Brien, I don’t know what you want me to do.”  
“No, no, they’re working just fine. In fact, better than fine, they’re wonderful,” he said. The Benjamin Sisko of somber gravitas and imperious dictum had been replaced with a jolly, excited man. “It just so happens that you can’t make blackened catfish without making a little smoke.”  
“Catfish?” Kira was fairly certain Earth cats were, like on Bajor, small, furry mammals, and had it on good authority they were not aquatic creatures.  
“Oh, yes, blackened catfish, served over rice with fried onion, and that’s just the main course. Here,” he turned to her with a wooden spoon in his hand, steam rising off of the reddish brown goo inside. “Try this?” She shot him a skeptical look. “Try it, Major, that’s an order. I had Doctor Bashir confirm that there’s nothing here that Bajoran physiology can’t handle.”  
Was this some kind of game? Make her put on her uniform on her day off to watch the CO play house? And eating this substance from a spoon, some sort of bullshit trust exercise? Or infantilizing faux-romance? Maybe Dukat and Sisko weren’t so unalike after all.  
Still. He was her CO. And she had to assume he had the good sense not to murder her within his first three months. She sipped it.  
“Well?” He asked.  
Kira fanned herself. “Hot,” she panted.  
“Temperature hot or spice hot?”  
“Both.” She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to cool it.  
“Here, here,” he handed her a small goblet of red wine. Kira accepted it eagerly, quenching her fire.  
“Sorry, Major,” Sisko said. “I may have been a little overzealous with the cayenne pepper.”  
“You think?” Kira said, swallowing another gulp of wine. “What the hell was that?”  
“Gumbo,” Sisko said, trying a spoonful himself. “Yes, you’re right, too much cayenne. Chop up a little more celery, will you?”  
Kira stared blankly.  
“These.” He picked up one of the stalks and put it on the cutting board in front of her.  
“And gumbo?” She asked, picking up a knife.  
“It’s like a very thick soup, made with seafood, celery, peppers, and onions.” He stirred the pot a little. “Chop it just about every centimeter, maybe a centimeter and a half. When you have a handful of it, drop it in this pot.”  
The celery snapped as she chopped it. What was she doing? Was she a kitchen girl now? She dropped the knife.  
“I’m sorry, Commander, but you didn’t call me in here to help you make dinner.” She put a hand on her hip, leaving her other hand by the knife, just in case.  
“What do you mean?” He asked. “Of course I did.” A wave of steam hit Kira’s face as he flipped the catfish.  
“Excuse me?”  
“I invited you to have dinner with me and Jake. That is,” his voice rouse to a shout, “if he ever stops messing around and finishes his homework.”  
“Almost done!” Jake called from the other room.  
“I don’t understand,” she said.  
“What’s there to understand?” Sisko said, leaning on the countertop. “We’ve been working around the clock just to get everybody settled in their new postings, Bajoran and Starfleet alike. I thought you could use a relaxing night and a good, home-cooked meal. And you and I could use the time to talk. I don’t know you very well, Major, not beyond your official CV at least, and I like to know my officers. A hot meal and good talk is the best way to learn about life, my father always says.”  
Kira felt the words crawl up her throat, but took a sharp intake of breath instead. She could feel the pointed blade resting inches from her hand.  
“I don’t have time for this,” she said.

A few minutes later, Jake emerged from his bedroom to find his dad putting away the pots and pans.  
“Whoa, what happened?” He asked. “Where’s the Major?”  
“Gone.” Sisko said, placing a dirty dish in the replicator. “I guess she has better things to do.”  
Jake didn’t pry, knowing his dad would talk when he wanted to. Instead, he sat down at the table to eat the smaller-than-expected meal with his father, and tried to cheer him up with stories of extra curricular misadventures.

~

“Hey!” Jake Sisko shouted across the promenade. “Major Nerys!”  
Kira was with Vedek Rochus, chatting about the restoration of some art lost during the Occupation. Her brow wrinkled when she heard her given name.  
“Sorry, Vedek,” she said, squeezing the older woman’s hand before turning away.  
Jake bounced down the steps from the upper level two at a time. His wide smile flashed even brighter than his colorful, multi-patterned shirt. He sped over to her, nearly knocking a Bolian onto his back with little more than a “sorry” over his shoulder.  
“Major Nerys!” He repeated. He was young, probably little more than thirteen, at least by Bajoran standards. Still yet to grow, he was a little shorter than her  
“Major Kira,” she said flatly. “On Bajor, we say our family name and then our given name. My family name is Kira. Major Kira.”  
“Major Kira,” Jake said. “Sorry.”  
“What can I do for you, Mister Sisko?” She said, lacing her hands together behind her back. Jake snorted.  
“That sounds so adult.” She didn’t reply, so he carried on. “Why didn’t you stay for dinner the other night?”  
Kira frowned, and turned to go. “I’ve got a busy day today, Jake. Let me know if you need something serious.”  
“Wait, hold on.”  
She waited.  
“My dad was really excited, I was too. So why did you leave?”  
She could see he inherited his father’s persistence. “I’m free to do what I want, aren’t I? Spend my dinner how I want? Eat with who and where I want?”  
Jake’s smile faltered. “Yeah. I guess so.”  
“So what’s the problem?”  
“Well, why didn’t you want to eat with us?”  
“It’s complicated.”  
“Try me,” he said. “Mrs. O’Brien says I’m very smart. I’m ‘insightful.’”  
“Listen, Jake.” She pulled him over to a bench and sat down. “When I say it’s complicated, I mean it. I’ve lived my entire life under occupation. I’ve spent my whole adult life as a resistance fighter. Bajorans, we have a lot of reason to distrust outsiders, especially outsiders who want to be the boss.”  
“But the Federation isn’t the same as the Cardassian Union. They want Bajor to be freer and happier”  
“That’s what the Cardassians said too.”  
Jake frowned.  
“Like I said, it’s complicated.”  
“You don’t know my dad like I do. If the Federation were evil, he wouldn’t be in Starfleet.”  
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I don’t know him. I don’t have any reason to trust him.” She took a moment, thinking how she wanted to broach this sensitive topic. “You have to understand, during the Occupation, there were Cardassian officers who made similar invitations to Bajorans. To me. And other women, it was almost always to the women. Some times the invitations were just that, and they could be refused, but for most, they were orders to be obeyed. A lot of times they were just dinner, just a conversation, just a trip to the Cardassian ballet. Not all of the time though. But, regardless of what actually happened between these Cardassians and Bajorans, it was always about one thing: control. They wrote our laws, they took our land, and they could decide how we could spend our time, and with whom, even what we wore and what we ate.”  
Jake stared off, silent. He had heard some of the horror stories of war and occupation, of course, but his dad always tried to keep the more gruesome details away from him. Jake had never considered the brutalities of daily life under fascist oppression.  
“Your dad,” she continued, “just assumed I was free. Assumed I could and wanted to have dinner with him. He didn’t ask me to help cook, he told me to. It was, sorry,” her voice grew hoarse. She cleared her throat. Old memories were resurfacing, ones she had necessarily repressed. “It was too much.”  
Jake nodded.  
“My grandpa has this saying,” he started.  
“Seems like he has a lot of those,” Kira cut in, quietly. Done speaking, she realized there were tears in her eyes. She blinked them back.  
“He really does.” Jake did the courtesy of pretending he didn’t notice her tears. His grin returned. Kira would be lying if she said it didn’t cheer her up a little. “Anyway, he says when someone tells you their story, don’t say ‘I understand,’ because you probably don’t. Say ‘I’m listening.’” His face grew stern, surprisingly stony for such a cherubic face. “I’m listening.”  
“Thanks, Jake.” She patted his knee. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get to ops.”  
“Sure thing,” he said. “Thanks for taking the time to explain it to me.”  
She gave a tight smile and a nod, and headed for the turbolift, leaving Jake to carry and consider the weight of her words.

~

“But, Jake, it’s not like that.” Commander Sisko’s voice was muffled as he pulled his uniform off over his head.  
“I know that,” Jake said. He was perched on the arm of a chair in his father’s bedroom. “But Major Kira doesn’t.”  
“You spoke to her?”  
“I figured she would be nicer to me than she was to you.”  
“And?”  
“She was.” Jake grinned. “I guess I’m just more likable than you.”  
“Very funny.” Ben took a small bag to the restroom. “What did she tell you?” He raised his voice to be heard over the sound of the electric razor.  
“I didn’t really understand everything she said.” Jake noticed a PADD on his dad’s bed, and picked it up. “But it sounds like she’s still pretty upset by the Occupation.”  
“Understandably,” Sisko said. “The Cardassians committed atrocities on Bajor and its people.”  
“Well, as far as she sees it, the Federation being here is a lot like the Occupation. And -” Jake stopped his dad before he could rebut, “- she knows they’re different. But as far as she’s concerned, you and that Dukat guy are both alien soldiers telling her what to do.”  
Sisko stared at himself in the mirror, his five o’clock shadow only half erased. There were the stony, strategizing eyes of a military man, yes. And the smooth, ridgeless nose so alien to Bajor. On his gray undershirt were three gold pips that put him in charge of this station, a station not belonging to his government, not in Federation territory, and in doing so made him the de facto ruler of hundreds of Bajoran citizens. Ben Sisko finished shaving and left the bathroom.  
“What are you doing with that?” He snatched the PADD out of Jake’s hands, and sat in the armchair with his son perched over him. “Maybe she has a point. We are a little out of place here, aren’t we?”  
“I keep noticing people staring at my nose.”  
Sisko smiled. “Making our home here might be even tougher than I thought, Jake-o.”  
“You’ll figure it out, Dad.” Jake leaned over onto his dad’s shoulders. “You always do.”

~

“Report.” Ben Sisko stepped off of the turbolift into Ops. The ovular room buzzed with energy as the station sprang back into life with the dawn of a new day.  
“We’ve got a malfunctioning power relay in the habitat ring, section naught-twelve, sir.” It wasn’t yet 0800 hours and there were grease stains on Miles O’Brien’s uniform.  
“Send a crew as soon as possible, Chief. Oh, and I want someone to look at the docking clamps on bay three. I hear some ships had a bumpy landing yesterday.”  
“Yes, Commander.”  
“The Cicero, a scout ship, did a survey of the Badlands. I’m analyzing their data now.”  
“Have it on my desk when you’re done, old man.”  
“Yes, sir.” Jadzia’s excitement for new astrological data was palpable.  
Sisko’s eyes met Kira’s. They had not seen each other, nor spoken, since the disastrous dinner two days prior.  
“Major.”  
“Commander.” She looked down at her PADD. “General Krim has concerns over some Federation policies regarding armed ships.”  
“Tell him to send them to me in writing.”  
“Expect them by 1400 hours. Constable Odo would like to run some training exercises in the promenade.”  
“Phasers training?”  
“No, sir, just tactical deployment.”  
“Approved. But, please Major, see that he does this during quiet hours. Last time he did this in the middle of the lunch rush and there was nearly a riot.”  
“I’ll pass that along.”  
“Anything else?”  
Kira scrolled through the PADD and shrugged. “That’s it, Commander.”  
“Good. If you have a moment?” He motioned to his ready room. Kira bit the inside of her cheek and silently recited an old Bajoran mantra for calm. She nodded and entered the room, followed by Sisko, who sat down in his chair.  
“Please, Major, pull up a chair.”  
“I prefer to stand.”  
“Fine then.” Sisko smiled. Kira wondered what the joke was. “You and I need to talk.”  
“About what?” She snapped.  
“About a lot of things. You may want to reconsider the chair.”  
“I’m fine,” she said through gritted teeth.  
“Very well. Now, I-”  
“Is this about the dinner in your quarters?” She cut him off.  
“Among other things.”  
“Respectfully, sir, I was off duty, and under no obligation to be your kitchen maid. In fact, I should be chewing you out for having the gall to be so presumptive. I mean, really, do you think you can just call me up out of the blue and have me drop everything to help you make soup? I am a soldier and an officer in the Bajoran militia. I didn’t fight the Cardassians every waking moment of my life just so I could help some Federation toady replace them as our new overlord.” The words spilled out of Kira so quickly that she was panting when she finished.  
“There,” Sisko said. “Feel better now?”  
“Yes, actually,” she said.  
“Good.” Sisko leaned back, considering the furious Bajoran. He picked up the baseball he kept on his desk and tossed it from one hand to other.  
“Well?” Kira demanded.  
“Well,” Sisko put the baseball down. “I think you’re completely right.”  
“Excuse me?”  
“I think you’re right. Well, ‘toady’ wouldn’t have been my first choice, and my father would have your badge for calling gumbo ‘soup,’ but besides that, you’re right. I know what Starfleet and the Federation are like. I know what we stand for. I know what we’re here on Deep Space 9 to do. The fact remains, we’re aliens. Intruders, even. You have every right to be suspicious of us, of me. And, yes, I was inconsiderate both of your time and your past. You are one of the most important members of your planet’s military, the second highest ranking individual on this space station, and one of the few people not in Starfleet capable of dismissing me from duty. I should have realized what message I was sending when I told you to come to my quarters.” Sisko held his breath for a moment as he stood on the precipice of breaking one of the cardinal rules of leadership. He sighed through his noise, smiling still. “I’m sorry.” He was pretty sure he could feel his command instructor from the Academy spinning in his grave.  
Kira blinked. “I don’t understand.”  
“You and I have a very important job here. Whatever you may think of the Federation and its presence in this star system, I know you understand that this is the path to Bajor claiming its place on the galactic stage. That only happens if you and I can successfully work together. But ever since I got here, we’ve done nothing but argue. Do you know how many times I’ve come home hoarse from some shouting match on which vendor gets a permit for the promenade or whether a certain security officer should be put on shift two or shift three? I was hoping to remedy some of that tension, but clearly I didn’t fully grasp our situation.”  
“Clearly. How exactly were we supposed to bring Bajor and the Federation closer together making soup?”  
“Gumbo.”  
“Sure, jumbo, whatever.”  
Sisko ignored that. “Are you familiar with the concept of a sous-chef?”  
Kira shook her head. It was clear this wasn’t going to be a quick chat. She gave in and dragged over a chair to sit in.  
“It’s an Earth tradition, from a nation called France. The sous-chef is the second most important person in the kitchen, at least on paper. In some people’s eyes, they’re the most important, and with good reason. While the head chef is in charge of directing the overall course of the kitchen, creating the menu, setting the standards for how things are made, and being the face of the operation, the sous-chef actually gets all that done. My father had the same sous chef in his kitchen for twelve years until she left to start her own restaurant. Do you know how long it took him to replace her?”  
“No,” Kira said. She was beginning to wonder how many times she was going to hear about the captain’s father.  
“Three years. Once, a man came in. He had studied in Paris, lived in Haiti for five years, worked in New York, San Francisco, Rome, and Louisiana. He could recite his own grandmother’s recipe for jambalaya by heart. If he tasted a meal, he could name every ingredient. So my father gave him a chance. They made a gumbo together, much like the one I was making the other night. My dad takes him into the kitchen and this man, wow, you’ve never seen someone work so naturally. He used the knife like it was a part of his hand. He knew where each ingredient was, sometimes without even being told. He would hand you what you asked him for before you finished your sentence.”  
“He was perfect,” Kira said.  
“That’s what I thought. But then my dad had him taste the broth.”  
“He didn’t like it?”  
“Just the opposite! He loved it, he thought it was excellent. ‘The finest I’ve had since my grandmother passed,’ he said. Can you guess what my father did?”  
Kira shook her head again. Reluctantly, she was being drawn into the story.  
“Fired him on the spot.”  
“What?”  
“I was just as shocked as you. ‘Dad,’ I said. ‘What are you doing? The man was born to be your sous-chef.’  
‘Did you hear him?’ My dad asks. ‘Did you hear what he said about my gumbo?’  
‘What are you talking about? He loved it!’  
‘Exactly!’ He says. ‘He didn’t have a single negative thing to say about. Not too spicy, not lacking in celery, not too watery.’ Naturally, I take the spoon from him and try it.  
‘It’s perfect,’ I say.  
‘Well, of course it is,’ he says. ‘It’s my gumbo, when have you known me to make anything else but a perfect gumbo.’”  
Ben Sisko broke out laughing as Kira frowned, puzzled.  
“So what was his problem?” She asked.  
“He couldn’t work with a man like that. Even if he knew he was doing the right thing, he needed his sous-chef to push him, to check him, to keep him aware at every moment so that he never fell into the comfort and certainty of believing his own abilities. He knew that to be a great chef, he needed a high standard to strive for.” Sisko leaned forward. “I need my sous-chef, Major. I need someone who can say when my gumbo is too spicy, too watery, doesn’t have enough celery. This entire time I’ve been stationed on DS9, I’ve been waiting for you to give in and act like a first officer. It took you storming out of my quarters for me to realize that that’s exactly what you’ve been doing this entire time.”

~

“Coming!” Jake Sisko bounded across the living room to answer the door. Tendrils of steam and smoke spilled out into the habitat ring hallway as the door slid open. “Major! You made it.”  
“Hi, Jake,” Kira said, with a soft smile. She was dressed in civilian clothes, but just barely. Her wardrobe had yet to recover from the necessities of guerrilla warfare, and still consisted mostly of harsh fabrics in brown, green, and grey.  
“Come on in.” Jake led her inside. Captain Sisko was much more casual in a bright green tunic with a diamond shaped pattern of iridescent colors. His apron was already covered in stains. Sweat dripped down his brow. He was leaning over the counter, chopping bell peppers with expert precision.  
“Dad,” Jake said. “Major Kira’s here!”  
His concentration broken, Ben looked up with a wide grin. “Ah, Major. Glad you could join us.”  
“Please,” Kira said. “Nerys is fine.”  
“Nerys, then.” Sisko scooped up some broth, orange as flame. “Try this.”  
Kira blew on it before delicately tasting it.  
“Well?” He said. Kira swallowed the soup and wiped her mouth on a napkin.  
“It’s good,” she said. “A little too spicy, though.”


End file.
